


stray cat strut

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: tumblr prompts/ask game answers [13]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien AUGreste 2020, Adrien Agreste Never Went to Public School, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Autistic Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Food Issues, Found Family, Gen, HOW LONG HAS THAT BEEN A TAG, Homelessness, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Parent Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug), Past Abuse, Podfic Welcome, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Protective Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug), Runaway Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Sort Of, Yes again, but he ends up slowly meeting everyone anyway, in more than one way actually, internalised victim blaming, liberty! chat noir, liberty!adrien, runaway adrien agreste, well it is NOW anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22203190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: "Home sweet home," Adrien grumbles, detransforming as he slips through the apartment window.He's pretty sure this apartment's been sold, now, and that means that he's going to have to find another place within the week.  He'd like to find one sooner than that,  but he's worn out enough from the four akuma today that he doesn't even want to muster the energy to look for some place new right now.  There are roofs and alleys he can claim for a night or two until he has time to look, anyway.Plagg's so tired that his grumbling doesn't manage words.  He wanders over to the backpack they'd stashed in a corner, out of view of any windows, and phases into it instead of bothering to pull any of his cheese out.(They'd run out of the last of their Camembert days ago, but Plagg got upset enough when Adrien kept apologising for only being able to get him cheddar that he's not going to bring it up again).
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Plagg, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: tumblr prompts/ask game answers [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1478756
Comments: 171
Kudos: 1074





	1. howling to the moonlight on a hot summer night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miraculous_Elcie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miraculous_Elcie/gifts).



> this was supposed to be short! its not. 
> 
> for [miraculous-elcie ](https://miraculous-elcie.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, for the prompt 'Chat Noir and Marinette, Coming home!' 
> 
> _why would you hand me that-_

"Home sweet home," Adrien grumbles, detransforming as he slips through the apartment window. 

He's pretty sure this apartment's been sold, now, and that means that he's going to have to find another place within the week. He'd like to find one sooner than that, but he's worn out enough from the four akuma today that he doesn't even _want_ to muster the energy to look for some place new right now. There are roofs and alleys he can claim for a night or two until he has time to look, anyway. 

Plagg's so tired that _his_ grumbling doesn't manage words. He wanders over to the backpack they'd stashed in a corner, out of view of any windows, and phases into it instead of bothering to pull any of his cheese out. 

(They'd run out of the last of their Camembert days ago, but Plagg got upset enough when Adrien kept apologising for only being able to get him cheddar that he's not going to bring it up again). 

Adrien flops onto his back on the floor, wincing as the empty hardwood makes his aches all known to him at once. For all of the miraculous healing abilities of Ladybug's Cure, he _still_ always seems to find himself sore whenever they've had to fight a running battle. 

And two of the four akuma of the day had _not_ wanted to be caught.

Adrien shifts, rolling over onto his stomach and burying his head in his arms. His stomach growls, but he ignores it. He's been hungrier for longer and his desire to stop moving for a while overrides his desire to bother finding something to eat right now. 

He should still probably have expected the hunk of cheddar Plagg bounces off his head, though. 

"Hey," Plagg says, and Adrien lifts his head just enough to glare at his kwami. "Kid, you know you gotta eat." 

"Not hungry, Plagg," Adrien mumbles, but another loud growl from his stomach makes him wince. "...not _that_ hungry." 

Plagg flits over and lands on Adrien's head, hunkering down and purring loudly. "Oh yeah, I totally believe you. You wanna tell me yet how come you didn't, like, clear out the kitchens before we took off? Looked like that place would have had _tons_ of food." 

Adrien's aware. He'd raided the kitchens for Camembert before they'd last left, but he'd left the rest of the food alone. 

His stomach feels hollow and it's not because of hunger this time. "Yeah. You would think." 

Plagg pauses. "Kid?" 

Adrien drops his head again, blowing out a breath that flutters his bangs. He might have to try and cut his hair soon; if it gets any shaggier than this he's going to look too obviously like Chat Noir. 

Though that might not matter. 

It's not like anyone ever sees him detransformed anymore. 

"Hey, kid..." Plagg slips off his head, landing on Adrien's crossed arms. "Seriously, you know this isn't, like. Sustainable. Right?" 

"Not going back," Adrien says, muffled. 

Plagg snorts. "Yeah, I kinda figured. Wasn't gonna suggest it. But the whole squatting in empty apartments thing? Ain't gonna work forever." 

"Worked so far." Adrien stubbornly doesn't move. "And there's always rooftops." 

"Weather's a thing," Plagg reminds him. " _Winter's_ a thing. Not to knock your whole stray cat theme, it's a good theme, I gotta approve, but pretty sure you humans need _shelter_ when it gets rough out."

"Thought you said the suit'll protect me from the elements." Adrien finally concedes that Plagg's _probably_ not about to let him sleep sprawled in the middle of the floor again, though, so he gets back to his feet. "I could stay transformed." 

Plagg huffs. "Stop it, will you? You need _other humans_ , kid, and I think you know it." His kwami's eyes narrow. "Why _didn't_ you ever try finding somewhere else? I know the posters are still up, but you've wrecked like half of them by now and most of the rest are in bad shape." 

Adrien cracks a tired smile, suddenly feeling sore all the way to his bones. "'Cause there's still a reward on those posters, Plagg. Besides, I see more people as Chat Noir than I ever did as Adrien." Even if the only one he really spends any time with is Ladybug. He doesn't think press conferences and Ladyblog interviews count, exactly. 

The Ladyblogger seems nice. So do her classmates. Adrien loves seeing them more than anyone but his Lady, but it hurts, too. Their class is so close, they're always doing things together, and he'd _almost_ had that. 

Almost. 

He's never stopped wishing that akuma hadn't attacked right as he tried (again) to make it into the classroom without being caught. He guesses he _hadn't_ technically been caught, but when Nathalie had hauled him back home-

Adrien's not actually _good_ at sneaking out, or he wasn't then, anyway. He'd been taking advantage of his father's lapsed attention- not that Father has been very good about paying attention for the last few years, he'd always left that to Mom and Nathalie anyway, but he hadn't noticed the first few times Adrien had tentatively slipped away after lessons, so he thought he was in the clear. 

Except he wasn't. 

He doesn't know whether it was the Gorilla or Nathalie who'd caught on that he was trying to sneak off to school, but either way he'd lost that freedom as soon as his father had found out.

He's pretty sure their security system hadn't been designed to be used like that. 

Plagg had hovered over his shoulder, watching curiously as Adrien tried desperately to teach himself lock picking from YouTube and the kind of online tutorials that his ad blockers had strenuously protested against, as Adrien drove himself to tears breaking pins off in the lock and retreated to study the window for a way out. 

Plagg hadn't said anything about it. 

Plagg _had_ phased out of the window, unlocked it from the other side, and transformed Adrien as _he_ scrambled out the window and stubbornly ignored the alarms going off behind them. 

He knows Father worries about him. He knows that after losing Mom, especially, his father wants to know that Adrien's safe, somewhere he can keep an eye on him. 

Maybe if Adrien ever actually _saw_ him, he'd feel guiltier about that.

He probably should feel guilty about that. 

He does, a little, when he passes posters of his own face stamped with MISSING, stamped with the promise of a (vaguely worded, he can't help but notice) reward, but not enough to give up any of his freedom.

...he _does_ wish his freedom involved a little more food and a regular place to sleep, but it's not like he can be picky about it _now_. Besides, the more time passes the worse going back would be. 

Adrien's glad Plagg's the only one around to know just how often he wakes up in a cold sweat, anxiously checking the doors and windows of wherever they've crashed and sometimes outright climbing onto a roof somewhere rather than stay indoors at all.

Plagg thinks he's traumatised. Adrien thinks a day and a night of being locked in his room, when it's not like _that's_ never happened before, is a pretty embarrassing thing to get _traumatised_ over and so he ignores Plagg's pointed comments about it. 

Plagg helps him check the exits when he wakes in the middle of the night, anyway, and while he doesn't tend to encourage Adrien to transform much- Adrien gets the sense his kwami thinks he's transformed too often already- he never _discourages_ him, either. 

There's no way he's getting that sleep he'd so looked forward to now, not when Plagg's drawn his attention to his complaining stomach, so Adrien hauls himself to his feet with a groan and makes his way towards the bathroom. This apartment hasn't been empty long, and he's been able to actually _use_ the shower rather than trying to sneak into gyms and shower as fast as he can before retransforming- Adrien's going to take advantage of this shower for the dwindling time he has left. 

He does bring his bag with him. If someone ever does notice running water where they shouldn't be, he needs to be able to get out as fast as possible. 

When he meets Ladybug for patrol later, she's quieter than usual. Adrien can freely admit he's not always the _best_ at reading people but he thinks something's bothering her.

He'd thought he was good with people, right up until he started going to press conferences as Chat instead of Adrien and discovered that staying quiet and polite and, most importantly, out of the way does not, in fact, mean that he knows how to deal with _people_.

He knows how to diffuse someone's temper. He knows how to fade into the background and let someone else take over. He knows how to keep silent and still and to be pretty and polite when someone does address him. 

He _doesn't_ really know how to talk to people. 

What do people even talk _about?_

(Ladybug's never minded when Adrien has to fumble awkwardly to find words. He's struggled more than once to tell her how deeply he appreciates that).

Still, Adrien doesn't have to be an expert at people to figure out that Ladybug's jumpier than usual. He's not sure how to bring it up, though, or even if it's something he _should_ bring up, so he never does. 

It's a surprise to him when _Ladybug_ does. 

"Hey," she says, long after they'd usually have stopped patrol for the night. It's also long before Adrien ever wants to stop, so he hasn't said anything about _that_ , either. Besides, the lack of akuma tonight has him paranoid- usually if Hawkmoth misses a night it's only to hit them harder during the day. "Hey, alley cat, follow me." 

Adrien can't help the way he perks up at that. Sometimes Ladybug's just as restless as he is, but not often, and he treasures those nights that she actually _wants_ to play chase across the rooftops. 

He still can't keep himself from asking, "Are you sure?" 

Ladybug gives him an odd look, but she only says, "I'm sure, Chat." 

Adrien accepts that- isn't sure he can do anything _but_ accept that- and follows his partner along a winding route, touching down on more roofs than not, waving occasionally to other people who are out late for their own reasons. They almost never fail to brighten when they see the heroes passing by, and that makes Adrien straighten with pride in turn. 

He'd always thought before that he knew what it was like to have people happy to see him. It was never like this, though. He's starting to think they were never happy to see _him_ , so much as they were happy for what he represented. That's- still true, sort of, as Chat Noir, but at least now he knows it.

Knows what to expect, and what not to. 

Ladybug does eventually bring them to a halt, in the lee of a ship anchored on the Seine. She looks around once, clearly comes to a decision, and leads him _onto_ the ship. 

"LB? What-" Adrien starts, only to fall silent at a hand gesture from her. 

She stops and turns back to him at that, and this time he can see the concern in her gaze for what it is. "I didn't mean shut up, Chat, I just meant I needed to pay attention. I wanted to introduce you to some fr- to some people, but I'm not sure they're home." 

"I'm home," a new voice pipes up, and Adrien turns quickly to see someone he'd never thought he'd actually get to meet. Outside of a battle, anyway. 

"This is Rose," Ladybug says, but Adrien already knows that. 

He'd run off with his school things, after all. He has an old yearbook from Chloé, because he hadn't known how well he'd remember faces at first, and now that he's- now that he's living with Plagg instead, Adrien has spent a _lot_ of time looking at that yearbook. 

Looking at all the people he never got the chance to know.

"Rose, you know you don't actually-" Ladybug starts, and then trails off with an oddly guilty look towards Adrien before clearing her throat. "So, does that mean the spare bunk's taken after all?" 

"Oh, no," Rose assures her, her own eyes flicking to Adrien and then back away quickly. "I'm rooming with Juleka. And anyway, Luka's got a trundle bed- oh!" Rose cuts herself off, tilting her head. "Oh, you meant for- yes, we have still got a spare bunk, Anarka offered it to me but I wanted to stay with Jules." 

Ladybug takes a deep breath, then reaches back and finds Adrien's hand. He clasps hands with her without really thinking about it, tangling their fingers together, and takes a deep breath himself when she draws him forward. 

"Can-" Ladybug hesitates, then gives Adrien another one of those guilty looks. "If he's comfortable with it. Do you think Chat could stay with you?"

Adrien steps back so quickly he stumbles, Ladybug's hand tightening on his. 

She turns to him just as quickly, her brows drawing together in what he recognises as a combination of worry and fear. "Sorry, Chat. But I-" She hesitates again. "I really need to know you're safe, kitty, and I don't think you are. You're not going home at night, are you? You don't have to tell me where you've been staying, but if you- if you need somewhere, I thought I'd let you know we can find people to help." 

"Our whole class would," Rose puts in eagerly, head twitching back and forth between them. She's bouncing on the balls of her feet now, hands clasped together behind her back. "Juleka helped _me_. I think Kim and Alix did something for Nathaniel, too. And if you need somewhere to get, like, food, Marinette's parents always keep extra around! You don't have to go to the side door or anything either, if you go to the counter and just like, let them know somehow-" Rose stops and makes a face. "Actually, Juleka sorta told them? I don't actually know _what_ she told them. They'll get you food, though! Uh- if that's something that you need," she adds, suddenly sheepish. "You can just- just ignore that if you don't. But Marinette's one of the nicest people I know and her parents are wonderful, they'd help you just like Anarka!" 

Adrien's silent, unable to come up with anything to say in the face of so many unexpected offers of help. He can't shake the feeling that he doesn't _deserve_ their help. 

Swallowing around the lump in his throat, aware that he's confirming at least some of their suspicions with his answer, he asks, "Can I think about it?" 

When he goes to the bakery the next night (patrol's not every night, no matter how much he'd argued for it- Ladybug had insisted that they do both need to sleep sometimes, and she'd sounded exasperated enough that he'd backed off), the lights of the bakery itself are off. 

But the balcony up top is both lit and occupied. He's not sure how obvious it is from the ground, but he didn't _get_ here from the ground. 

Adrien's spent most of the day searching the city for an alternative place to sleep now that their 'borrowed' apartment's been sold. He stays well away from Le Grand Paris- Chloé might well offer him a place to stay, but only as Adrien, and Adrien's still missing. Chat Noir is not. 

He spent the rest of his day going through his battered yearbook, recognising Rose, finding Juleka and Alix and Kim, finding Nathaniel and Marinette. 

They'd all have been in his class.

He recognises Marinette, where she's waving from the balcony, but it takes him a moment to register that she _is_ waving. 

Adrien's dropped down beside her before he finishes thinking about it, landing in a crouch and feeling his tail lash behind him as he rises slowly. "Good evening-" He's not supposed to know her name. He kind of balks at calling anyone else _lady_ , even thought that's what feels most natural on his tongue. "-princess." 

Lady would probably have been better. 

Marinette snorts and leans on her railing, though, not looking offended in the least. "Good evening, kitty. I guess I should count myself lucky, since lights are usually more prone to attracting _moths_." 

Adrien very carefully sets aside his immediate reaction to that. He's been doing that a lot, though he'd needed Plagg's help at first- he's had to detransform somewhere safe and let his kwami talk him through breathing easier again more than once, especially during those first few weeks. Even now Adrien spends a lot of time on his own keeping a wary eye out for any dark butterflies. 

(He's pretty relieved that he's not the only one he's seen startle badly at perfectly _normal_ butterflies, too).

"Hey..." Marinette's voice draws him away from that line of thought. 

When he looks up, she's gesturing towards a plate left out on the balcony. It's filled with a fairly wide variety of pastries and Adrien's mouth starts to water immediately. Even living in the mansion, he hadn't been offered sweets all that often. 

"We had leftovers," Marinette tells him, taking a seat on one of her folding chairs and nodding towards the other. "If you want some?" 

Adrien doesn't even _try_ to hide how eagerly he reaches for a croissant. 

It's definitely the best thing he's eaten in weeks, if not months. That might be partly because he hasn't been eating all that much and partly because it's a _gift_ , but he thinks it mostly really is that good. 

Marinette giggles when he licks crumbs off his claws, but she tosses him another croissant immediately, too. 

"I'm Marinette, by the way," she tells him as he settles into the other chair and sets to work on the plate of sweets. He might regret that later, but right now he doesn't think he has the energy to care. "And I'm pretty sure everyone already knows who you are." 

He gives her a weak smile. "My reputation proceeds me?" 

"Something like that." Marinette frowns down at her sweet bun, turning it over in her hands. She doesn't look at him when she says, "A little ladybug told me you might need a place to stay. We don't have a lot of room, but there's a chaise lounge in my room if you ever need a place to sleep." 

Adrien blinks, mouth still half-open, and lowers his roll. His ears flick, giving him away as he says, "I-I might have a place to stay...." He trails off. 

He doesn't really _want_ to stay on the boat. Rose promised that the spare bunk there would mean he'd have total privacy, that he wouldn't have to risk his identity, but something about staying there still hadn't felt... right. 

Marinette's offer feels right. 

Adrien's learned very quickly ever since getting his Miraculous that he has instincts he should trust and instincts that he _shouldn't_ , and Plagg had thought his instincts about the Liberty were good ones. Adrien still wants to ask his kwami later, because he knows he'll feel better for the confirmation, but he thinks he's already decided to stay with Marinette. 

He doesn't regret that, when he finishes the plate almost by himself and follows her through the skylight. 

He doesn't regret it even when he's awake again and nauseous some hours later, because Marinette wakes up too and starts apologising frantically when they realise _why_ he's nauseous, that he'd definitely tried to eat too much all at once after weeks of getting by on scraps and handouts, and she shows him to the bathroom and then stays up with him until his stomach settles even though he _thinks_ it's a school night. 

(Probably. He's kind of lost track). 

It's so easy to stay a second night, and then a third, and then she introduces him to her parents and _they_ keep offering him things- carefully, like they're afraid of scaring him off, somehow- and they kind of do, actually, Adrien bolts that fourth night and spends it curled around Plagg and trying not to hyperventilate in a spot where two roofs meet right up until he has to answer the akuma alert again.

And then he goes back to the bakery.

And the night after that, he goes back. 

"Kid," Plagg says, during the day when Adrien's crept into someone's unattended greenhouse to take a nap in the sunlight. He's not succeeding at it very well. He can't entirely shut off the part of him that's still watching warily for anyone to notice him where he's not supposed to be, any sign that he might have to transform and flee in a hurry. Sometimes it's hard to detransform just because he knows he has to be ready for the next attack, and akuma can be anywhere from several hours apart to only bare _minutes_ apart. It's hard to breathe for the uneasy feeling that's made a home deep in his chest. 

He's always uneasy when he's not transformed. 

"Kid," Plagg repeats, nestling down between Adrien's shoulder blades. "Why didn't you just stay at Marinette's? You like it there. You coulda gone up to the balcony if you wanted some sun." 

Adrien catches his first response, which is that he doesn't want them to know he's technically homeless. They have to know. It's still true that he doesn't _want_ them to. 

"Marinette could find out my identity," he says instead, pressing his head into his arms and taking deep breaths. "And you know they're still looking for me." 

The bright surge of emotion that rolls through Adrien at that is one he's long since given up on untangling. He knows it's part guilt and shame that he's putting Father and Nathalie through this so soon after losing Mom, but there's a lot more to it than that. 

They _are_ still looking, they just... aren't looking very hard. He'd really thought that they would look harder. 

They had, that first week. There'd been enough posters up and enough of a reward offered that Adrien had stayed transformed the whole week, to Plagg's immense displeasure. 

He's been Chat Noir for long enough now that half the time he's not sure he remembers how to be Adrien. He's not sure that he _wants_ to be. 

He doesn't want to hurt his father or Nathalie, but he can't shake the horrible tangle of terror and dread and desperation that the bars closing in on him had brought. Even this much later he can't think of it without wanting to detransform and hold Plagg for a while. 

Plagg is surprisingly tolerant about how badly Adrien needs him. Adrien still feels really weird about relying so heavily on his kwami, but it's not like he really has friends. He has Plagg and Ladybug and since he can't go to Chloé, that's it. That's- all he has. 

Except it's not, now. He has Marinette now. He has her friends, if he's only willing to let them close. He has her _parents_ , who have been nothing but welcoming, even though he feels like a strange boy in a leather catsuit should absolutely _not_ encourage them to be so kind and supportive.

If he can just bring himself to trust them, he might have the friends he'd so badly wanted. 

He's still realising just how much his father had shattered his trust when he'd engaged the security system against him. Adrien didn't expect to have so much trouble trusting anyone else after that (with the obvious exceptions of Plagg and Ladybug), but he does. 

Mostly he does.

He trusts Marinette. 

He just doesn't know _why_. 

(He doesn't know why then, anyway. Once he's been staying with them long enough to start feeling more like he _belongs_ there, he'll find out, and going to her will finally make sense). 

Adrien does try the spare room at the Liberty, but he only stays the one night. There's nothing really _wrong_ with it, and the privacy is reassuring, but-

If he's completely honest, he's gotten too used to the reassuring sense of someone else sleeping in the same room as him. He's never stopped having nightmares where Plagg _isn't_ around to let him back out, and when he wakes up disoriented the steady sound of Marinette's breathing is always immediately comforting.

But then M. Dupain- who's asked Adrien to call him Tom- takes him aside one day and tells him quietly that Anarka homeschools her son. That he's sure she wouldn't mind another student. That she's more than familiar with the local homeschooling groups. 

It never stops feeling a little weird to show up to the Liberty still transformed, but by now everyone only knows him as Chat Noir. The only one he ever talks to as _Adrien_ is Plagg, and even then he can't stop himself from keeping half his attention on his surroundings because he _really_ doesn't want to know which of his churning emotions an akuma might latch onto. 

Mme. Couffaine- Anarka- the Captain, sometimes- never even _mentions_ it. She doesn't comment even once on the way he's always already transformed when he's there; she just teaches him right alongside her son Luka, and Adrien's both off-balance and grateful because Luka swiftly becomes another friend, and so does his sister, and so does Rose _._ He _knows_ Rose and Juleka go to school with Marinette, but they're at a lot of Anarka's classes anyway, and Adrien has no idea how to express how _happy_ it makes him to learn with other people instead of alone.

The bakery is warm and close and kind, and the Liberty is chaotic and noisy and free, and both of them are worlds and worlds apart from Adrien's previous life. 

It takes him a while to realise he's settled in without ever really meaning to. 

(But he detransforms less and less often, and he thinks he wouldn't detransform even _that_ often if he didn't make a point of talking to Plagg at least once a day. Plagg saved him, whether his kwami acknowledges it or not- Adrien's lock-picking had _not_ been going to work and he knows it).

Marinette's never asked him who he is (he's not entirely sure she doesn't know), but Adrien very gradually becomes less wary about detransforming when he's staying with her. 

By the time he hesitantly, quietly asks her about detransforming to sleep, he's staying there every night.

Marinette hesitates herself, and Adrien feels his spirits plummet.

"You shouldn't have to be transformed _all the time_ , Chat," Marinette says hastily in response to whatever shows in his expression. She reaches for him and Adrien doesn't recall reaching back, but his hand is suddenly tight around hers. "I'm glad you asked. I'm glad you're _comfortable_ enough to ask. I just.. I just have something to tell you, first." 

He thinks he knows before Tikki shows herself. 

He thinks he's known for a while now. 

He trusted her more than enough to detransform already, but knowing without any room for doubt that she _is_ his partner means Adrien detransforms with a grateful sigh of relief. He's slept transformed so often now that he's mostly stopped thinking about it, but he learned while they were still hopping around to different empty apartments and uninhabited (unlivable, sometimes) spaces that he desperately prefers to have Plagg with him. Marinette's friends and family and Rose's friends and family have all _helped_ , but Adrien's more aware than ever now that Plagg's been the closest thing he has to family for the past few months. 

Or he had been, _until_ Marinette and Rose had pulled him into their families as well.

The bakery feels like home in a way the mansion hasn't in a long time. The lessons on the Liberty are far more engaging than any Adrien's ever had before, save maybe fencing, and he has near-daily spars with Ladybug to make up for that loss. He has _Ladybug_ , most of all, who'd led him to these people in the first place and then backed off to let him make his own decisions. 

For all that she's in charge of their battle strategy, she's always been careful to let him make his own decisions.

Still-

"You didn't want us to know," he says uncertainly, watching their kwami flit about the room and feeling something in him relax for the first time in weeks. When he glances sidelong at Marinette, she looks more settled too, and he realises guiltily that she hasn't been able to see much of _her_ kwami while he's been here. 

He also realises, uneasily, that she really _has_ to know who he is.

She hasn't stopped calling him Chat, though. She hasn't let go of his hand either. 

"I didn't want us to know _for our safety_ , alley cat," Marinette reminds him, tucking herself against his side the way she sometimes will after a long patrol. "I don't think keeping it a secret was doing very much for _your_ safety after all."

"What about your family's safety? And your friends?" Adrien leans back against her even as he asks. 

Marinette snorts. "For one thing? It isn't like Hawkmoth doesn't already try to go after _everyone_. For another- Chat, _you're_ part of my friends and family. We want you safe, too." She moves her head away slightly, and his heart starts to pound when she gives him the kind of assessing gaze she usually reserves for a particularly challenging Lucky Charm. "And if you're okay with it... I think we should call Juleka and Rose." 

He starts, not at all prepared for that. "W-what? Wait, _why?_ " He's only just worked himself up to telling _her_. He didn't think she'd want him to tell anyone else, especially not his- friends? Classmates? Maybe it's not the school experience he'd hoped for, but he _does_ have classes with them now. 

Marinette has to stretch up on her toes to ruffle his hair, but that never has stopped her. "Because you said you don't _want_ to be transformed all the time. You know what Juleka and Rose are really, really good at? Hair dye and cosmetics. Rose can give you a different _face_ if you want, trust me on this."

He trusts her. 

He still spends a lot of time as Chat Noir, because he's established a whole new _life_ as Chat Noir mostly by accident, but sometimes he goes out with his friends untransformed now too. He has a lot of trouble deciding on a name for them to use, because he doesn't feel safe using Adrien but he doesn't actually want a(nother) new name, but his friends don't seem to have any trouble with that. 

Tom and Sabine still call him Chat. Marinette still calls him Chat. He _knows_ Marinette knows who he is, he's _asked_ , but she also admits she'll call him Adrien only if he wants her to. (He doesn't, mostly, but sometimes when it's just them he asks her to).

With everyone else Adrien's 'name' gets lost in the shuffle of more than one introduction instead, and eventually they all start using the rotating cast of nicknames Anarka gifts him with. It doesn't feel as weird to him, somehow, when it's multiple aliases instead of just one. 

(None of them feel like his _name_ the way Chat Noir still does, anyway). 


	2. singin' the blues while the lady cats cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there wasnt supposed to be more to this, this isnt what i was trying to work on writing at all, but my brain FIXATED so here we are i guess! 
> 
> this did not get beta'd so any mistakes are mine, all mine.

She's always known that her partner can be skittish sometimes, but it's not until she finally coaxes him to stay the night with her that Marinette starts to get an idea of exactly _how_ skittish. Before that she'd been chalking it up to how hard Plagg's cat traits had hit him- a whole lot harder than usual, according to Tikki- and now that makes her feel slightly sick, because it means she's been missing all the signs that her friend was in trouble over and over again. It means Chat's been in trouble for longer than they've known each other. Guilt settles leaden in her bones at every wary twitch of his ears, now, because now those missed signs all seem so _obvious_ that she want to kick herself for never having seen them before.

It doesn't help that Chat gets so sick himself in the middle of that first night, making Marinette's own stomach clench in sympathy. She does know vaguely that it's not good to give someone a lot of food suddenly when they haven't been eating for a while, but then she hadn't really thought that Chat hadn't been eating. It feels so obvious in retrospect but she just hadn't _thought_ of it. 

Of course he hasn't been eating. She knows that Chat won't steal, so where would he have been getting food? It's true that previous akuma victims will gift them things like coffee and pastries sometimes, and Alya and Mme. Chamack both have developed a habit of trading them a meal for an interview, and Marinette herself frequently brings treats for themselves on patrol. 

But even that leaves Chat living off the scraps of other people's kindness. 

He's been living on gifted food and leftovers for who knows how long- and Ladybug had sometimes refused gifts of food on _both_ their behalves, either because she didn't trust the giver's intentions or because it was someone she'd have felt too guilty accepting food from. Sometimes the people they save definitely don't have that food to spare. 

_Chat_ hasn't had food to spare. 

They're both back in bed by now, but Marinette can tell by her partner's unsteady breathing that he's not asleep. She hopes he's not still too sick to sleep. 

She tosses restlessly. She knows the way Chat's shoulders slump whenever she politely but firmly turns down an offer of a meal. She's seen his tail fall listlessly still and his good ear twitch forlornly, seen the way his gaze tends to lock onto the offered treats. She should have- 

She'd had no choice but to turn some of them down. There's already been at least three attempts that they know of to poison them both, and she still suspects that the week Chat spent sicker than she'd thought they could still get was the result of a _successful_ attempt. 

They don't really understand _why_ anyone (outside of Hawkmoth) wants to poison them at all, but Marinette's had a sick feeling for a while now that Hawkmoth just might have managed to sway some people to his side. How, she's not sure. Yes, she and Chat do tend towards loudly destructive fights, but Hawkmoth is still the root cause- and Ladybug and Chat Noir almost always put everything back to rights, anyway. 

Almost always. Chat's torn ear and the way she's pretty sure he favours that side sometimes still haunt her. He says it's fine, he says it doesn't bother him, but it's impossible for Marinette to miss the way that ear doesn't quite swivel as far as his other one anymore. Chat definitely doesn't hear as well out of that side, either, although his hearing is good enough that she doubts anyone but her would ever notice. He denies _that,_ too, but it's too obvious to her- he tries to keep his other ear closer to their fights, now. 

They couldn't accept some of those offered treats. They _couldn't._ There's a _reason_ Chat had spent that week sick and Marinette hadn't; Marinette had tried to turn down those, too, only to realise Chat had already scarfed down more than half the cookies they'd been given. At the time she'd been annoyed, but- 

But looking back, she doesn't think the faint glint in his eyes had been mischief like she'd thought. She thinks it had been _desperation_ , the way he'd locked onto the tray of cookies and gone still but for his lashing tail like he was waiting for a chance to pounce. Now, she wonders just how long it had been since the last time he'd eaten. 

Marinette twists back over onto her side, staring blankly into the space above her room as she tangles herself further into her blankets. 

She lives in a bakery. _Lives_ there. All that food a floor below, and she hadn't noticed as her partner scrounged and starved. `

Chat's always been thin, she knows that well enough from huddling together on late patrols or during breathers between akuma on the bad nights. 

They have a lot of bad nights. 

Chat's thin enough that she usually finds herself shifting restlessly to find a comfortable position to curl up with him, because he's too many sharp angles and not enough padding and how had she missed him getting _thinner?_

How long has it been since her best friend had a full meal? Has he only been getting that from Alya, on the rare occasions they do set up an interview with her? 

She doesn't want to think that his situation had gotten that serious before she'd even realised something wasn't right with him. 

She should have thought about it anyway. It had already taken her too long to realise something was wrong, especially because her dumb cat tries to hide illness and injuries even worse than an actual cat, and once she _had_ realised she should have thought about how he was feeding himself. _If_ he was feeding himself. 

Even though there's such clear danger in it, she's never been so grateful that people seem to like to give Chat food. Not enough, she realises that now, not enough for him to have been having full meals, but enough so that he could keep going. She wonders dully how many of those snacks and gifts he'd taken home- taken with him- to hoard against the next time he'd run out of food. 

No wonder he's always so eager to go to Alya's interviews. Alya loves to feed them, and Marinette knows for a fact that any food from Alya is going to be safe. Alya might not be as skilled a cook as her mother but she always gives them full meals, filling ones, and though Marinette had tried to politely refuse the first few times Chat had kept giving her plate such a forlorn look that she'd ended up giving in. 

She'd thought then it had just been because the food smelled so good. Chat Noir's nose had been twitching wildly that whole time, and he hadn't seemed able to tear his eyes away from the roast duck Alya had offered them. 

Marinette had tried to _refuse_. For _both_ of them. 

She's so relieved, now, that Alya had coaxed her into staying after all. 

One of the first things Marinette had started noticing even back then was that Chat never finishes a meal- that he always finds a way to tuck bits and pieces of it away for later. He's still doing that _now,_ he'd finished all the pastries but then she'd noticed him fishing a couple of badly squashed granola bars out of the pocket of his suit and hiding them in his pillowcase. It's such a practised motion she's not even sure he knows he's doing it. 

The guilt is overwhelming, and she's already been up with her partner for the better part of the night, resting a hand on his back while he visibly struggled with nausea. Even now that they're both back in bed, she's only finding more and more tiny tells and habits that she should have _seen_. 

He doesn't want to sleep. 

More accurately, he can't seem to settle enough to sleep, and that started even _before_ he was too ill to manage it. 

She's going to have to talk to her parents a lot sooner than she thought. She never intended to hide Chat Noir from them- even if that was practical, and she knows it's not, it wouldn't be fair to Chat. He deserves better than to have to hide away in someone else's home. He deserves to feel like he _has_ a home, because Marinette should have known that he doesn't seem to have one at all. 

It's hard to tell, because of how and when they met, but she has a terrible creeping suspicion that he hasn't had a home for at least as long as she's known him. 

She's sure that her parents will know how to get her partner to gradually work up to larger portions again without offending his pride. Chat's not normally anywhere near prideful enough to reject help, but this is different. This is something that, judging by the slightly haunted looks she's catching occasionally, he desperately hadn't wanted anyone to know. 

She doesn't think he wants her to know how badly he's sleeping, either. 

Because when they've both been trying to sleep again for a while, even though Marinette privately doesn't believe Chat about feeling better now, she turns over in her bed and cracks her eyes just enough to watch her partner. 

He spends a lot of time fiddling with the blankets she'd given him. He arranges them into a neat pile at first, then drags one of them out and drapes it over the others, then makes a tiny noise of dissatisfaction and rumples up the whole arrangement before starting over again. Marinette has to work hard not to giggle at him and give herself away, because he's being such a _cat_ , but then she sees the way that Chat's eyes are still open, still reflecting light, because he keeps glancing at the skylight. At the trapdoor. At the window. 

At the exits. 

And Marinette has that tendency, too- it's _necessary_ , with the akuma attacking multiple times a day and nearly every night as well- but watching Chat do it now sets an uneasy feeling itching between her shoulderblades. There's something _wrong_ about the way Chat watches the exits, nerves bleeding out of him in the uneasy lash of his tail and the uneven twitch of his ears. 

Chat always shows up to nearly every battle before her, even when the weather's made their methods of travel difficult. The way he's eyeing up all the exits even now makes more sense when she realises that she's not that sure he's used to spending much time _indoors_ at all. 

She turns back over and buries her face in her pillow, muffling her breathing as it starts to pick up. Her pillow hides the tears that prick at the corners of her eyes, too. She can keep telling herself that Chat's been like this as long as she's known him all she wants _,_ but it won't stop the guilt settling deep into her heart and setting it aching. She should have noticed sooner. Chat's only gotten warier over time. She knows how hyperaware of their surroundings he always is, even on patrol, even though he doesn't hesitate to sacrifice himself in battle if the threat is to _her_ no matter how many times she tells him _not to do that.  
_

He never seems anywhere near as concerned when the threat is to _him_. 

Marinette had wondered about his sense of self-worth long before she'd wondered about the rest of it, and she's wondered about the rest of it for months now. 

But- but when she tries to ask him, he only ever deflects, and there _are_ other, more reasonable explanations for so much of it. Marinette's gotten warier and more vigilant herself, because they _have_ to be, because Hawkmoth never gives them the chance to rest. She checks for exits just like he does because she knows she's going to need them. She jumps at loud noises and reacts defensively to being startled, because the one time she doesn't could be the time that Hawkmoth _wins_. 

The last time she remembers actually sleeping through the night was when she and Chat Noir had been so exhausted from three consecutive battles in an hour that as soon as they'd recharged and retransformed, ready for the next fight and too tired to think straight, they'd ended up falling asleep slumped against each other in an alley. 

(Waking up like that had nearly given her a heart attack. It had taken her long minutes to work out that they were both still transformed, and then she'd had to fight the temptation to go right back to sleep). 

If Juleka had offered to tutor Marinette any later than she had, Marinette is sure she'd be failing all her classes- and Marinette's still fairly certain Juleka had only offered because Rose used to haunt the bakery after classes, before moving onto the Liberty. 

Not that Marinette had seen very much of Rose even then. Even then being Ladybug was eating more and more into her time, but she knows her parents had been setting aside meals for her classmate for a while. She doesn't know exactly what happened, because that's not information she thinks she's entitled to, but in the end realising that something _had_ happened made a lot more of Rose- and Juleka's- behaviour earlier in the year make sense. 

And then Marinette had slowly started to realise that she was seeing a hundred tiny echoes of that behaviour in Chat Noir every day. 

Rose has spent more than one gathering this year fidgeting badly until Juleka showed up, and then she plasters herself to Juleka's side as long as she can. 

Chat Noir has a similar bad tendency to fidget with his tail and ears whenever he beats her to a fight- bad because Hawkmoth has developed a tendency in turn to designate Chat's ears and tail as _targets_ , and while Marinette isn't going to pretend to know what that means to _Chat_ she knows she's had to shut the Ladyblog more than once when a picture of her partner's tattered ears or bitten-off tail has crossed it. She can't even reassure herself with the thought that the damage won't stay, not when there's a permanent nick in Chat's left ear already, left behind when she'd had to retransform between overlapping akuma and he hadn't. 

Lucky Charm had only caught the damage from the second, not the first. 

He'd begged her not to blame herself for it. 

The first akuma that day hadn't been one of the destructive ones, after all. 

(The first akuma that day had been too focused on hurting Chat, had been deliberately hurting Chat as a way to distract _her_ , and Marinette's never stopped hating that she couldn't protect him when the second akuma had been setting fire to the streets. She still thinks Chat Noir had more injuries than just his ear that went unhealed that day, but he won't admit to any). 

But what he does is too similar to what Rose had been doing with Juleka- Chat Noir fidgets until Ladybug arrives, and then he follows her like a devoted puppy. It's not the only echo of Rose she sees but it's by far the most obvious. It's annoying sometimes, because she really doesn't need him tripping at her heels during patrols, but not enough for Marinette to discourage him. Not when he tenses like she's going to _hit_ him every time she lets any little bit of that annoyance show. 

Not when she can see the uncertainty in his eyes when he slides a sideways gaze to her, each and every time, like he isn't quite sure if _this_ is going to be the time she's truly upset with him for it. 

Marinette's learned to phrase herself carefully. She's seen the way Chat flinches, ever so slightly, whenever she lets too much of a reprimand slip into her voice. She can't always avoid it, though she tries. For him, she tries. 

But he really does need to know that he can't keep sacrificing himself like that, that sometimes she does need him to switch off his humour for a second and focus on the fight more seriously, that she needs him to be quiet for a bit for her plan to work. 

He always flinches. No matter how she tries to cushion the blow, he always flinches. 

Marinette has never willingly hit him and never would. 

She wonders, uneasily and often, who _has_. 

That flinching is another thing Marinette saw from Rose, before. It had hurt enough to watch Rose do it. Marinette couldn't have guessed how much more it hurts her to see the same reaction in her own partner. 

She's not surprised, now, that Juleka had agreed so quickly to Rose's moving onto the Liberty. She's not even surprised that when she'd checked with themthe entire Liberty crew had been so immediately willing to offer up their spare room for Chat Noir. Marinette knows her own room isn't ideal, but she'd needed to offer, and she'd needed Chat to know he had a choice. 

He so frequently seems surprised to have a choice. 

He's gotten a lot better, but she's seen Chat Noir freeze up more than once at what she'd thought were innocent questions. Rose does _that_ , too, and Marinette doesn't know if it makes it better or worse that they don't always do it on the _same_ questions. 

She understands Juleka wanting Rose to move in. She understands because of the relief that had enveloped her when Chat Noir agreed to stay with _her_. 

It might still be only for the night. She doesn't think it will be, but it could. 

At least now he knows he can come here, or go to the Liberty. At least now she's finally managed to give him not just a place to stay, but a choice between them, because it scares her so much that he doesn't always seem to know what to do with a choice. Now he has places he can go that are safe and warm and where he's not alone. 

Before any of the rest of it, she'd known how much he hates being alone. 

She hates the creeping, dreadful realisation that he must have spent so much time alone. 

Marinette tries to still under her covers, listening as hard as she can for her partner below. The rustling of the blankets he's using still hasn't stopped, though it's slowed down a lot, and his breathing is still nowhere near the calm regulation of sleep. 

Calling down to him might reassure him. It might not. It might spook him so badly that he leaves and doesn't come back instead. She's not Ladybug right now, not his partner while he's here, and while she knows how to comfort Chat as Ladybug she's not too sure the same methods will work as Marinette. 

She's not too sure she likes how quickly he'd agreed to stay with Marinette. As far as Chat Noir knows, she's a stranger, albeit one his partner had vouched for. Rose had vouched for her, too, but it isn't like he knows Rose either.

He doesn't really seem to know _anyone_ besides her. 

It had taken her far too long to realise that. 

But they don't discuss their civilian lives. She can see hints looking back, the way he'd flinch sometimes when she did slip and mention her parents, the way he'd slink off after certain battles like he was still hurt even though Marinette does everything she can to make sure he's healed- and as Ladybug, she can do a lot. 

The way he doesn't seem to think it _matters_ that he gets hurt. 

It matters to her. It matters to her a lot. 

She's beginning to be very afraid that there's no one else it matters to, excepting Chat Noir's kwami. Chat Noir himself so clearly doesn't think whether or not _he_ gets hurt is important, but she knows he loves Plagg, and she knows from things Chat's said that Plagg doesn't like his self-sacrificial tendencies any more than she does. 

Marinette loves Tikki and wouldn't give her up for anything, but Chat's mentioned Plagg more than a few times. He mentions Plagg in that same off-handed, absent way that she slips up about her parents. 

Chat Noir doesn't talk about his kwami the same way she talks about Tikki. He talks about Plagg like- 

Like Plagg's all he has. 

She should have caught on months ago. 

But she can't go back and change things now (and she hates thinking about time travel anyway), and she _can_ try to make sure her partner is getting a decent night's sleep somewhere safe and comfortable. 

Marinette rolls over again, tangling herself further in her blankets without meaning to, and stares at the wall as she tries to think of how she can try to make Chat more comfortable. She knows he likes to cuddle- the way he melts into her arms whenever she hugs him or leans against him or even scratches just behind his tattered ear has made that impossible to miss, and should have been yet another clue besides- but Marinette offering, a stranger offering, that's not the same. 

(She wonders who the last person to hug him was, besides her. She wonders if there _was_ anyone before her- and if there was, she wonders if they'd noticed the way he was all bones and sharp angles under their hands, too. 

She knows now that he doesn't have a home to go back to. She doesn't know yet if he ever did). 

She's not sure how much longer she listens to him toss and turn before she finally gives up. It could be hours. It certainly feels like hours. 

"Chat," she whispers into the dark, listening closely for the way he goes so suddenly still. She's seen him do that before, when they had akuma that they had to chase or stalk across the city, and even though she'd honestly expected him to do the same thing now it still hurts to see. 

It's not a bad thing, during a battle. Not usually, anyway, although she's seen Chat freeze a couple times, and he's seen her freeze other times. Marinette had frozen in their first fight, and she'd had bad moments during Syren and Lackadaisy, too. Chat hadn't done well with Puppeteer, or Sandboy, and she'd been honestly scared he was going to have a panic attack fighting Pandora. 

Marinette had ended _that_ battle as quickly as possible. She doesn't particularly like the idea of being trapped in a box herself, but Chat Noir had been outright shaking through that entire fight. She'd ended up making up some excuse for them to meet back up right after they'd won because he'd been in such obvious distress, and he'd been trying so hard to hide it but he hadn't been succeeding at all. 

That was one of the nights she'd hugged him and he'd collapsed into her, holding on like he was scared she'd disappear if he let go. Marinette knows that feeling intimately, so she'd wrapped her arms around him in turn and carefully guided them both down to the roof. 

That had been such a bad fight. Their timers had actually run out while they were still holding onto each other, anchoring each other, and they'd only stayed there with their eyes closed until Plagg and Tikki had eaten and been able to retransform them. 

Plagg had said something to Tikki, far too quiet for Marinette to make out, and maybe even too quiet for Chat even though he'd twitched in her arms like he'd been trying to swivel ears he wasn't wearing. He'd already been too used to being transformed, even then. 

Marinette still doesn't know exactly what Plagg had said, only that it had entirely changed the way Tikki viewed her partner. After that Tikki had gone silent on the topic of identities. She'd sometimes had exasperated comments on Chat Noir's immaturity before that, but they'd all but evaporated after that conversation. 

Tikki insists Plagg hadn't told her just how badly Chat was doing. She still won't tell Marinette what he _had_ said. 

"Did you need me?" Chat finally says softly, instead of any of the things she was hoping he would say.

Marinette props herself up on her elbows, looking down at him and unable to place how uneasy she feels at being above him rather than at his side. "How can I help? Do you need-" She gestures vaguely at the skylight, because even now she can see his eyes darting between exits. "We can sleep out on the balcony, you know. I've done it before." That's mostly true. She _has_ , but only since she'd started nervously eyeing up exits herself. 

It helps. The weather's not always conducive, but she's spent more than one night with an unfurled overhang and a carefully-angled umbrella as her only protection against a storm just to be able to be up there where there aren't any walls to close in on her. If Chat Noir needs to sleep up there, then Marinette will do her best to give them a bulwark against the weather and they'll sleep up there. 

Chat exhales, slowly, but very quietly. Now that she's paying the kind of attention she always should have been, it's painful to see the way he tries so hard to keep himself quiet when he's not with her. He's so loud and cheerful so often with Ladybug that she'd never noticed how still and silent he goes without her, like he's trying not to take up too much space. 

She wants, suddenly, with a desire that seizes her lungs and rattles her badly, to know who did this to her partner. She wants to know who made him so skittish, so painfully wary, and she wants to find them and- 

She shies away from what else she wants, acutely aware of Tikki hiding in her pillowcase. She's supposed to be a hero, and she can't go around hurting people, no matter how she wants to. No matter if she can't tell herself they don't deserve it. 

They hurt her partner first. 

Marinette wants to hurt them _back_. 

Chat still hasn't answered her. She wonders painfully if this is another instance where he's gotten stuck on having to make a choice. She doubts Plagg tolerates that, at least, but- as long as he's here, he won't have Plagg nagging him into choosing anyway.

She takes a deep breath of her own. He has _her_ , and Tikki's gone silent about their identities, anyway. 

It's not like she can put Chat in any more danger, if she tells him. He doesn't seem to have anyone else for Hawkmoth to hurt him with. 

"Chat." Marinette gentles her voice, even though it always makes her wince inside when she finds herself giving in to his more obvious cat traits and treating him too much like a wary stray. 

She hates that her next, tired thought is that he kind of _is_ a wary stray. 

She'd have brought him home, if she'd known. She'd have brought him home early on, right away even, within the first few weeks if not the first few days. He's- he's _hers_ , she can't- she can't really articulate it past that and doesn't usually bother to try, because she doesn't need to, because he's her partner and she's his, too. 

Except now she's not sure that he knows that. 

She hasn't ever talked to him about it, because she'd just _assumed-_ she's felt it either from the start or so close to the start as makes no difference. 

But Chat is so uncertain and skittish here, trying to watch everything at once out of the corner of his eyes, ears twitching flat every time there's a sound he hasn't learned to categorise yet, and he'd never told her that he needed help. 

She's shut him down every time he's even skirted around hints about his identity. What if he'd _tried?_

What if he's been trying to tell her this whole time, and she hasn't been listening?

"I'm going to head outside," Marinette says at last, because Chat Noir still isn't answering, and she's going to scream if she lets her mind chase itself in circles any longer. "I don't mind if you come with me, I'd kind of like the company, but you don't have to. You can sleep wherever you want. Honestly, my bed's gonna be empty, you can sleep up here if you want." Chat Noir likes high places. He likes to scramble to the highest vantage he can find and survey the world from his chosen spot. 

She'd always chalked it up to a cat trait before. She doesn't think so now. 

People don't look up much, generally. High places are good for hiding. 

Something happened to her partner that made him prone to seeking out hiding places, and she's not sure she wants to find out why. She thinks she maybe _needs_ to find out why, but she's afraid whatever she'll find out will hurt nearly as badly as that dawning realisation that his alley cat jokes have never been entirely jokes. 

She'd taken so long to realise that he needed help. He's her partner, and she failed somewhere along the line for him to not know that _of course_ he could have come to her. Chat could have come to her the day they met and she'd have done all she could to help him. 

But he hadn't. 

She knows he trusts her, because their trust in each other is what lets them fight together so seamlessly, and that means there's some other reason he didn't feel like he could tell her. 

She thinks of how nervous and even outright scared he'd looked on the Liberty and listens to the way he's pawing restlessly at the spare blankets down below her even now. She has an awful, sick feeling that Chat is _ashamed.  
_

Marinette's wanted to wrap her arms around him and not let go ever since she'd first realised exactly what was going on with him, but realising her partner is so afraid of judgment for something that _can't_ be his fault only strengthens it. She doesn't know what happened to leave him homeless in the first place, and she knows even less what could have happened that he's tried so hard to hide it, but she'll do everything in her power to make sure he knows he has a home with her. 

And she's Ladybug. She has enough of that power to scare her. She can't do anything yet about the toll the akuma are taking on them both, but she can make sure her partner has a home again- has a family again, because even if there wasn't that constant current of _you're mine I'm yours you're my partner you're my heart you're mine and I'm yours_ that hums through her, she knows her parents well enough to know that they're going to take one look at Chat and want to adopt him. Papa's going to leave out pastries like he's trying to tempt a stray in from the cold. 

Which will probably work, with Chat, whether or not he wants it to. 

She thinks Chat probably wants it to. 

She's seen the way Chat looks at food, looks at her, the way he'll comfort akuma victims but backs away and makes himself scarce once their friends or family show up to comfort them themselves. She thinks Chat Noir's had enough of being out in the cold on his own. 

Which maybe makes it ironic that not ten minutes after Marinette's made her way out onto the cold balcony, comforter wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Chat heaves himself out of her skylight with a strange hesitance in his movement. 

Marinette edges sideways and pats the space beside her. She doesn't say anything, but she doesn't have to. Chat Noir settles next to her, close but not touching, certainly not wrapped half around her like she's used to him doing when they're out on patrol and they decide to steal time to rest instead. 

Chat's holding himself stiffly, clutching the blanket around his shoulders like it's another layer of armour, and she knows he _wants_ the reassurance of touch. 

Marinette lets herself list sideways, knocking her shoulder lightly against his, and smiles softly up at him as a little bit of that unnatural stiffness leaves him. If either of them are going to sleep at all tonight, it'll be here, outside and safe at each other's sides. 

They're together now. That's always been the most important thing. They can work through all the rest of it, as long as they're together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen, works an essential business, we had stay at home orders but it didnt actually affect me and i already had an emergency stash bc i was raised by very paranoid people (hey! did you know teaching your kids to not go with anyone, even if its your grandparents who you see several times a week, unless they use the right codename for EACH of you is like. NOT a usual thing to do? bc i sure didnt!) and i therefore just went for groceries again for the first time TODAY so its just been kinda surreal for months now, i think work actually got busier but its an animal hospital and we got to kick out all the humans but everythings insane, _i am very stressed and sleep deprived_ and this is apparently a result of that 
> 
> so if marinettes thoughts seem stressed and circling here, YEAH


	3. black and red stray cat sittin' on a fence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> adrienaugreste has a 'homeless' prompt. this being where i wound up should surprise no one. 
> 
> also, this was very much supposed to be the last chapter of this but, uh, look i didnt even find the end of THIS part. so.

Adrien knows he can always go to his partner or his kwami if he needs to talk, but aside from them it takes him a lot longer than he wants to admit to get used to talking to people.

He wants to say used to talking to other people _again_ , but... 

But he hadn't really had anyone to talk to before Ladybug and Plagg. Not really. 

He'd had Chloé, sometimes, rarely, and he's not quite sure Chloé counts because she's never been a very good listener. Chloé's always had a tendency to talk _at_ him instead of to him. Adrien had always been so thrilled to have any kind of social contact at all, and so scared that he'd lose it if he voiced anything that might be construed as a complaint, that he'd let her. 

He knows it wasn't intentional. He knows that Chloé didn't really learn how to talk to people either. 

Even if sometimes, when he's transformed and alone without even Plagg to talk to, Adrien stares up at the sky or the unfamiliar ceiling or at whatever bit of roof he's wedged himself under and wonders _why_ she didn't learn. Adrien hadn't had the opportunity, but Chloé's father had wanted her in school. She tells Adrien she's popular, and though he has no real experience with what that means and is only extrapolating from what he's seen in movies he assumes she must be talking to a lot more people than he ever has.

He wonders now if she's ever going to learn to listen. He'd wanted to be there when she did, so that he could tell her he was proud of her even if it probably isn't a good idea to phrase it like that. 

Chat Noir gets to talk to people in a way Adrien never managed to earn. People _listen_ to Chat Noir. Best of all, Plagg and Ladybug always always listen, and neither of them minds if he starts to talk too fast or too much because he's excited or curious or even just distracted. They don't mind if he stumbles over words now and again because he's only ever read them and never heard them spoken. Both of them will wait patiently for Adrien to untangle whatever it was he was first trying to say, and they don't get upset if he starts to repeat himself. 

(He's always had to repeat himself. He's always gone so long without a reply that he didn't even know how to know if he'd been heard in the first place). 

He's had time now to start to get used to Plagg and Ladybug, and for them to get used to him. He's done press conferences with Ladybug. He should be _better_ at this by now. He should know something as basic as _how to hold a conversation_ and he doesn't know what to do with the crushing realisation that he still can't quite figure out how to have one. He manages with Plagg and with Ladybug, even if it's halting sometimes, and he manages to bluff his way through press conferences and interviews, so he doesn't know why he can't just talk to Marinette or Rose or Luka like a normal person. 

Plagg keeps pointing out that Adrien already knows what kind of script he's expected to follow for a public appearance, and that Ladybug tends to do most of the talking for those anyway. Despite his partner's increasingly annoyed attempts to deflect more questions Chat Noir's way it's still always her the reporters are most interested in, and Adrien's always a little afraid he'll say the wrong thing and it'll be on _record,_ so he's never tried too hard to earn any more questions directed his way.

He doesn't want to take the risk of being recognised, anyway. 

Ladybug had tried as hard as she could to force more reporters to give Chat more attention in the beginning, but she'd also stopped once she'd realised how little he actually _wants_ the attention. 

"Sorry, kitty," she'd told him between battles one night, during what wasn't so much a patrol as a desperate rest before they have to fight again. "You always... I thought you wanted the attention." 

_From you_ , _I wanted attention from you,_ Adrien had tried to say, but it stuck in his throat and he'd had to swallow around it heavily before he could reply. Because it's not the whole truth. "I like attention, my Lady. I don't like- um." His ears had pinned back. "I don't like the scrutiny. Or the questions." He remembers he'd tried to smile. He remembers it had felt wrong. 

He remembers how he'd been unable to keep from hunching in on himself even as he said it, because he can't tell her the real reason is that he doesn't want to risk being found. 

She'd started to deflect reporter's attention _from_ him after that. 

He can't risk being found. 

He doesn't know what Father will do if he finds him. 

Because Adrien hadn't ever thought that his father would use the security system against him like that. If Father found that so easy to do, then Adrien doesn't know what _else_ he might do, and if the thought of being trapped was terrifying before it's gotten a whole lot worse now. There have been a couple akuma that have thrown him into panic attacks, and it's only dumb luck that they were fights that hadn't been broadcast or that had happened so quickly it hadn't been noticed or both. 

He never wants to fight Pandora again. 

Plagg won't let Adrien be trapped. Adrien _knows_ that. Either he'll be transformed and he can Cataclysm his way out, or Plagg will use Cataclysm _for_ him, because as careful as Plagg has to be with his raw power he still won't let Adrien be trapped. Adrien's not sure what exactly happened to his kwami in the past, but Plagg _gets it_ in a way that still surprises him on a regular basis. 

But then Adrien and Ladybug probably aren't their kwami's first chosen to find themselves pretty heavily traumatised. 

And by now, Adrien can admit he's definitely pretty traumatised. 

He still can't admit to anyone but Plagg how overwhelmed he'd been by Horrificator. He can't talk to Ladybug about it, and he's tried a couple of times. 

The fight had given him a chance to spend time with Marinette and Rose and Juleka and all their classmates that could have been his too, if things had gone only that little bit differently. 

It had given him a chance, and that chance had been so horribly marred by the way the sealed exits made him twitch and shake and fight to keep the terror out of his voice and hands. 

Afterwards, Ivan had come to find Chat during a solo patrol. He'd reached out to lay a hand on Chat's shoulder when he'd found him, but he'd been clearly unsurprised by the startled flinch that earns him, and he'd let his hand drop before asking Chat in a low voice what he knew about PTSD.

At the time Adrien honestly hadn't known that much. Ivan had handed over a book and a scrap of paper with his phone number. Ivan turns out to be in Luka's band. Ivan is on the Liberty, sometimes, and when the ship does become a place Adrien sometimes catching himself thinking of as a _home_ Ivan's a part of it. 

Anarka's welcomed more people into her family than just Rose and Adrien. 

Ivan flinches oddly sometimes too, and Adrien starts to see why Ivan knew to talk to him in the first place. It's not quite the same- Ivan's not very open about just how badly Stoneheart had affected him, but it turns out that at two am sprawled aboard the deck of the Liberty everyone's honest in a way they won't be otherwise- but it's enough that Ivan's never surprised at the way Rose and Chat both flinch if he accidentally startles then. 

Instead Ivan keeps an eye out much like Luka and Juleka do, and he'll shelter Rose behind him on instinct if they hear any sign of an akuma attack. 

More than once he also tries to automatically shelter _Chat,_ and even though Chat obviously has to head for the danger anyway he's still touched by it. 

And much, much later, Adrien can finally start to admit to himself why Ivan would have come to talk to Chat about trauma before Ladybug. 

But all of that happens _after_ the bakery and the ship. 

The first week or so that Adrien's trying to convince himself that nothing terrible is going to happen if he just sleeps at Marinette's sometimes, he's also trying to avoid thoughts of the Liberty and the spare room there. 

He shouldn't feel like this. He's lived in luxury for most of his life; the past few months have been hard, but they could have been a lot worse. Adrien has Plagg and Ladybug and his powers, and while he worries about food and shelter sometimes he's mostly been able to find safe places to sleep thanks to his ability to get to places no one else can. That almost no one else can. He's been lucky enough that Ladybug hasn't found him sleeping in some of them, although they use patrol to catch up on sleep often enough that she might not have thought anything of it even if she had. 

Food's admittedly been a little harder, but at least food's become a fairly common thing for people to offer him and Ladybug. True, Ladybug had been right to tell him they can't always trust it, and when he'd been too hungry to listen to her warning Adrien had wished badly afterwards that he'd trusted his sense of smell over his hunger. 

He'd been so hungry at the time, though. 

He's honestly used to being a little hungry, something that had Plagg muttering angrily to himself for a good five full minutes when Adrien had tried to explain, but the past few months of constant gnawing pain in his stomach is an entirely different experience. So is the way he's always tired and cold now, something that's harder to resolve than he'd have thought. Even warm nights have him shivering and curling into as tight a ball as he can, trying to warm himself up and ward off the hunger pangs at the same time, and he and Ladybug both can barely remember what a full night's rest feels like. 

One of the things Adrien _does_ regret sometimes is that he'd bolted so fast and in such a panic that he hadn't taken anything with him. It would have been nice to have at least a blanket. He almost breaks down and steals one, more than once, but he never does quite bring himself to do it. He has Plagg, he can transform; he doesn't _need_ a blanket. 

The nights Ladybug slips out onto the roofs with him and they try to take turns keeping watch while the other tries to sleep are by far his favourite. They can't do it all the time, but Adrien's guiltily relieved that they end up meeting up to try and sleep curled up against each other more often than not. 

Hawkmoth is relentless enough that they have to fight most nights, and once they _have_ fought they have to split up, but until then Adrien's not about to turn down any possible opportunity to fall asleep with his head on his partner's shoulder. Sometimes Ladybug brings snacks or a blanket or both, and those are the best nights. He loves Plagg, but Plagg can't wrap an arm around him the way Ladybug does, and they mean different things to him besides. 

Adrien never feels as warm as he does when he's tucked under a blanket beside Ladybug. 

He never feels all that warm at all anymore, but he's determined not to think about that very much. He doesn't exactly have the option of going to a doctor right now, even if there have been a few times he's acutely aware that he probably should have. 

It's a really good thing Ladybug's Miraculous Cure lives up to its name. 

When Adrien's still transformed, it's a little easier to curl up tightly to try to conserve warmth. When he's not, Plagg nags and complains and wheedles until Adrien finds somewhere sheltered and hopefully warmer, and then his kwami will dart down and settle firmly on Adrien's shoulder. 

Plagg always presses tiny paws lightly against his neck when he feels Adrien start to shiver, grounding him. Plagg talks a lot when Adrien can't settle enough to sleep, a low continuous murmur that reminds him he's not alone. 

So lots of people have it a whole lot worse than he does. No one else has Plagg and Ladybug the way he does. 

Adrien can't use the shelters at all anyway, but he can still see the faults in them from the way he's not the only one sleeping on the streets. Sometimes he makes a point of silently finding a perch somewhere up above someone else sharing the night with him, because that way at least he'll be able to warn them when the akuma attacks start.

He never jumps down to join them, though he's lonely enough to want to. He can't take that risk. 

But even if it hadn't been that bad- and it hadn't, he's not blind to the others sleeping outside the same as him and it _hadn't_ been that bad- the bakery is- having somewhere to stay _at all_ is- 

It's midday, midweek, and Marinette's at class and her parents are busy with their work. They'd offered to let Chat help, but the idea of being out in the bakery itself and maybe having Hawkmoth target it makes his breath come too quick and too sharp, and the idea of spending the day in the back with M. Dupain and the heat of the ovens filling the small space is even _worse,_ and he already hasn't been able to bring himself to willingly detransform for days. Plagg's going to be so mad at him, but Adrien's tried and he _can't_ , can barely get as far as 'Claws-' before he starts to tremble and his mind fills with static visions of butterflies homing in on his much more vulnerable form. 

He knows Plagg's mad already. Plagg's mad right now after each akuma battle, where Adrien tries to give his kwami as much cheese and any other food he can spare and some he can't before transforming right back. 

Plagg's mad, but he still lets Adrien keep transforming. 

So he isn't able to accept the offer to stay and help in the bakery, at least not that day. His attempt at a polite refusal probably comes off more like a terrified denial. 

Marinette's parents had understood. They always do. 

Adrien shies away from thinking too hard about that. He has to remind himself too often already that he should be calling them Tom and Sabine, like they asked. They both call him _son_ and invite him to spend time with them and offer to teach him to cook and sew and clean and don't get angry when he turns down their request to stay and help. 

Not too much later on, Sabine's not even _mad_ when she finds Adrien trying to use the microwave and not knowing how in the middle of the night.

Alya had fed them earlier, during one of the interviews Chat's never admitted he agrees to _because_ Alya always feeds them. He sorta suspects Alya knows but he's hoping she doesn't know why. 

Alya had brought her boyfriend for the first time. 

Alya's boyfriend had brought boxes of instant ramen and energy bars and given them to Chat at the end of the interview. 

"Just figured they're good to have on hand, dude, with the attacks happenin' like every five minutes," Nino had said, fiddling with his hat and not looking at either Chat or Ladybug. 

Chat can't help noticing that Nino hadn't given any boxes to Ladybug, and his tail wraps nervously around his leg as he blinks down at the food Nino's offering him. He- he actually _has_ food now, has food again, but it's not really _his_ , it's Tom and Sabine's or, if he ever does manage to stay aboard, it'll be Anarka's- 

He thanks Nino and takes the food. 

Ladybug does not take any of it from him. She tells Nino that she's sure Chat would appreciate it more. 

Adrien's pretty sure Marinette won't care or comment if he stashes it in her room, and he does store a little bit of the ramen and a handful of energy bars under the chaise lounge (there's an empty box under there that he doesn't think was there before, and though he hesitates to use it it _is_ both empty and beneath his current bed, it's probably for him-?), but most of it he takes to scattered locations around the city and hides away. 

He's had that habit for a while now. He tries not to think about it too hard. 

But now he's hungry for once, except it's the middle of the night, and he'd thought that it would be easiest to just go and make himself a single serving of ramen. That's the whole _point_ of instant ramen, isn't it? That it's simple? 

Except that he hadn't realised that microwaves are _loud._ Except that he didn't expect to punch in the time and then hit start and then have the machine beep angrily at him rather than start. Except that when he tries again, the display only flashes _DOOR_ in bright red letters that hurt his dark-adjusted eyes, and what does that even mean? The door is _closed,_ it's supposed to be closed, and he's really glad that his partner's not here to see Chat Noir losing to a _microwave._

He can't shake the thought that it's such a _stupid_ thing not to know. He'd had a chef, though, and then after that he hadn't had either a microwave or food to put in it. 

And then Sabine finds him, and Adrien can't stop the tense coil of his tail, the anxious flick of his ears that makes him wince as his bad ear only twitches partway. 

But she only gently takes the ramen from his trembling hands, before guiding him to the table without saying a word even as his head drops and his tail curls tighter around his leg. Sabine doesn't scold him, or ask him what he thinks he's doing. 

Sabine starts to take things out of the pantry. 

Adrien swallows. He wants to ask. He doesn't think he can force himself to speak. He still can't detransform, and he's having a worse night than usual even taking that into account. He couldn't stay in Marinette's room because right now the windows don't make up for the way the walls he's no longer used to feel like they're shrinking in on him. He can't sleep because he can't stay in Marinette's room, but he can't bring himself to head out into the night alone either.

Sabine finishes with whatever she's fetching and sits down across from him, folds her hands in front of her, and asks if he'd like to learn how to make mug cakes. 

Adrien doesn't have any idea what to do or how she wants him to react, so he only nods mutely. He starts to haltingly, clumsily follow her instructions, not knowing what else she might expect of him. 

"It doesn't have to be perfect, Chat," Sabine says gently at the sight of his shaking hands. "This is supposed to be for fun. You can stop if you want to." 

He swallows around the padlock-sized lump in his throat. "It's fine." 

Sabine takes that at face value with a nod. "You can tell me if it's not. You can leave if it's not, and you don't have to tell me first." 

Adrien stops and breathes through the strange flash of mingled hurt and overwhelming relief. 

Marinette comes in three quarters of the way through the lesson, rests a hand on his shoulder as she passes behind him, and takes down a cat- themed mug of her own. She takes one look at their ingredients and her lips twitch. 

She sets her mug down beside Adrien, pressing his shoulder again as she moves back behind him to reach into the refrigerator and take out blueberries. 

"You'll like this better," she tells Chat as she brings them back, and her eyes are full of challenge and mischief as she tosses her head back and laughs, free and unrestrained. 

It's something like two in the morning. He's still anxious and unmoored because he has no reference for this experience. All of them are still in their pyjamas. Even Chat himself, even though he hasn't been able to bring himself to detransform for days, has the fluffy green bathrobe Marinette's father had insisted he take wrapped tightly around his shoulders. 

Marinette's hair is unbound, and he can't tear his eyes from her as she laughs. 

There's something so _familiar_ in it, in that laugh, in the self-assurance that sparkles in her eyes and quirks her smile at the edges. It's like the courage that echoes through him on late-night patrols, when he and Ladybug reflect that confidence back and forth to each other until they both believe it enough to make it real. 

Adrien thinks he maybe suspected before that, but he definitely suspects it _after._

Marinette's right. He likes the blueberry muffin mug cakes better than the snickerdoodle. His own first attempt explodes over the sides of the mug and trickles down, a volcano in miniature muffin form, and Marinette laughs at him and scrapes at the sides of the mug to steal his escaped bits of cake. She uses her fingers and not a fork and sticks her tongue out at him when he protests. (Because if it's her- they spend too many nights curled around each other in their suits and masks for a single shared meal to ever matter). 

Sabine doesn't scold her even then. Doesn't scold either of them. Sabine smiles like Marinette smiles and she gets up and makes another snickerdoodle mug cake, and then another blueberry, and when Tom comes downstairs to find them- still in the early hours of the morning, and now none of them are sleeping, and Adrien's going to feel _so guilty_ about that later- Sabine hands him a mug full of chocolate peanut butter without looking and he takes it with a raised brow and without a word. 

Adrien's gone stiff, suddenly acutely aware of the late hour and that Marinette's hand is covered in blueberry stains where she's lightly gripped his wrist, applying the faintest pressure before pulling back. 

(He knows these wordless signs and signals. He knows them like he knows himself- _better_ than he knows himself, because he thinks his partner knows him better than anyone but Plagg). 

But it's fine. It's early, but Tom heard them, but he's not angry he wants to _join_ them he heard Sabine's soft laughter earlier and he makes Chat another mug cake himself and then starts making pancakes even though it's still early because he says all of them and Chat especially need to eat real actual people food for breakfast and he's not angry _he's not angry.  
_

He's not angry. 

Chat breathes, and listens, and soaks in the gentle conversation and the teasing laughter and the careful way Marinette touches him to warn him whenever someone's at his back even when it's her. Chat can't eat everything Tom offers him because he's still working his way back up to full meals, but he eats what he can and it's the best thing he's had in longer than he can remember. The breakfast warms him all the way through in a way that's not related to the food and the food itself is mouth-watering. 

Afterwards, Marinette shows him exactly how their microwave works. She stays too late to eat instant ramen with him and then has to sprint to school to try to make it on time. 

Chat's standing in the kitchen doorway, arms wrapped close around himself and tail wound tightly around one leg as he stares after Marinette, when Tom comes up to him. Chat's bad ear tries to twitch towards him and Tom smoothly switches sides. 

"Do you want to join us in the bakery today?" 

Chat hunches in tighter. The thought of being in that small space alone with Marinette's parents for hours still scares him too much to say yes, but does he really have a choice? What if that's how he's meant to earn his place here? What it that's why they keep asking? What if this is one of those terrible questions that's not _really_ a question? 

He can't _not answer,_ he knows how badly that he ends, but that only means that when he does try to answer he fumbles the words badly. 

Tom's hand comes down heavy on his shoulder, but at Chat's full-body flinch the man is suddenly across the room. His hands are raised and open, his eyes sad and understanding. 

"Chat, I won't hurt you," Tom says, softly, as Adrien clings to the doorframe and shakes and turns his head to hide the hot press of tears. He shouldn't be _reacting_ like this. Father never hurt him, Adrien doesn't understand why this fear seems to live in his bones anyway. 

Tom stays across the room and keeps his voice gentle. "Son. I know it's going to take you time to believe me. I know you've been hurt before. I also know how fiercely my daughter loves you, and that's enough to tell me the kind of person you are. I won't hurt you, Chat, and I may not be able to keep you from having to fight but I'll do what I can to keep anyone else from hurting you again." 

Adrien shakes and shakes and stifles the desperate whine that wants to rise in his throat. 

Tom's voice is still soft, still like he's trying to lure a feral cat in from the streets, and Adrien shies away from how true that feels. He'd _had_ a home. He'd left it under his own power (well, Plagg's power). He... might still be a stray, but not a _feral_ one. He'd _had somewhere_ and he'd _left.  
_

He doesn't deserve this kindness. 

"I won't hurt you," Tom repeats, just as gently, and then bites his lip. "You don't have to work in the bakery with me, Chat. I just thought you might like to have something to do." His eyes are still soft, gentle, coaxing, all those things that draw Adrien in and scare him in the same breath. 

He can't stay that day either, but he starts trying harder to reach a point where he can. 

He does end up going to the Liberty instead. Adrien still needs practise talking to other people, and Plagg and Ladybug can't help him with that. 

Rose can. So he starts to talk to Rose a little, and eventually he starts to talk to Rose a lot. It doesn't happen right away, or even all that quickly, but it does happen. 

It takes Adrien longer than he'd like to be comfortable on the Liberty, because he doesn't know Anarka and he doesn't know what her rules are or how not to break them. At first he finds himself retreating in not-quite-panic whenever Anarka notices him. 

Adrien thinks it's not-quite-panic. Plagg, once Adrien finally manages to detransform again, thinks it's panic. Plagg is pretty vocal about what he thinks about that, about what he thinks _caused_ that, and Adrien doesn't have a very good defence for Plagg's sharp comments. 

He tries to tell his kwami that it's not like Plagg's even been around Adrien's father very much, but that only makes Plagg point out snarkily that the entire reason for that is that Adrien's father had driven them both off barely a day after Plagg had _met_ Adrien. 

Adrien has a lot of trouble trying to come up with any decent refutation for that when it's been months and he still won't (can't) go near the mansion outside of a battle. Even during a battle, he'll do his best to avoid the area or try and draw akuma away from it, though he's always careful not to let that show. 

The few akuma that have gone for his father have been hell. He knows Ladybug noticed how much more agitated he was for those fights, but she's never asked and he's never offered. 

Adrien would have objected a lot more strenuously to Ladybug's rules about their identities if they didn't all mean she didn't have to know he doesn't have a home. He even more adamantly never wants her to know that it's because he ran away from his- especially that he ran away from a mansion. He could have had wealth and comfort and he's the one who gave it up. 

Plagg keeps arguing with him about that, too. 

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, because no one knows, because no one is going to know. Adrien can't go back, and the bakery and the ship are the closest to home he's had since he became Chat Noir. 

And they both take him some getting used to. 

Long before Luka or Juleka notice the severity of his unease Rose grabs him and tows him after her and then makes him sit down and talk to her. 

There's something really weird, then, about sitting across from each other on the spare bunk's tiny bed while he's still transformed. (It won't be weird later, but this happens early, and he doesn't know yet about Luka's homeschooling or that Juleka wants to model or that Rose doesn't know how to play keyboard but would like to learn). 

"Anarka doesn't have rules," Rose says, as soon as they're settled, before the door- the curtain, there's no real door- has even finished swinging shut. 

Adrien startles even though he tries not to, clinging to his tail and trying not to wring it with both hands. He tries to put every ounce of his Chat Noir persona into his voice as he says, "Cats don't have rules, either. No wonder my Lady suggested-" 

And then he falters, kicking himself mentally, because that is definitely _not_ what he wanted to bring up. 

He's grateful that Ladybug brought him here, that she'd both noticed something was wrong and had tried her best to fix it, but he doesn't like to actually think about it too deeply. He's- he can't quite say humiliated, because there's still far too much gratitude in him for that, but whenever he tries to think about the way she'd first brought him to the Liberty he feels his ears drop as flat as they still can and it becomes harder than usual to meet anyone's eyes. 

He knows now that Rose had only meant it to be teasing, but her cheerful 'Can we keep him?' the first time Chat had come back to the ship had hurt in a way he hadn't been ready for. 

"Anarka," Rose says again, slowly, and Adrien winces. He knows that she's stressing Anarka's name because Adrien had had a lot of trouble calling her by name at first, and even now he'll default to Captain if he's nervous. The Liberty crew are now some of the only people with any idea just how often he gets nervous. "Anarka doesn't have rules, Chat. You're not gonna break any rules, 'cause she hasn't _got_ any rules."

Adrien goes silent. This time he doesn't notice the way he's twisting at his tail until Rose leans over and gently pries his claws loose. 

"It's 'cause I had trouble with it too," she says, ducking her head and looking at their hands instead of his face. "Not that- I mean, my parents weren't, aren't, like, strict? Exactly?" Her tone is strange and Adrien can't read it. "But they, uh, they've never been anything like Anarka, either." 

Adrien wants to ask. He wants to ask, but he won't, because he can hardly ask Rose and not expect her to ask him and he can't answer her. 

"No-" He bites his lip, because that came out at a much higher pitch than he'd intended. "No rules? She's not just- not mentioning them?" Those were always the worst kind of rules, the ones you only find out about by breaking them. 

He's still scared of doing that at the bakery.

"No," Rose assures him, letting go of his hand but squirming sideways on the bed to lean against his side with a sigh. Adrien lets her; he's gone too long with too little human contact not to let her. "Really, Chat, you're not gonna get in trouble on the ship, okay? She doesn't have the- the not-rules kinda rules, either. She's not like, she'll stop fights between us if she thinks they're getting out of hand, and she'd maybe be upset if we stayed out late doing something dumb? Maybe? Except I think that Luka and I have both technically done that before, I've never seen her get mad about it." 

Rose stops, looking worried, and presses harder against his side. 

Adrien doesn't know what to say. He never knows what to say. It doesn't matter when it's Ladybug or Plagg, who don't mind if he says the wrong thing somehow, but he can't say the wrong thing here. He _can't._

Rose took him to the spare bunk. Her family is _offering_ him the spare bunk. 

It's not a large room, and there's not much in it besides the bed they're sitting on and that's bolted to the wall, but there's a porthole behind them and a curtain for a door and the smell of the sea in the air and it's been _so long_ since Chat had any space that was his own. Even at the bakery he's sleeping on Marinette's chaise lounge, like a stray that wandered in to claim the first piece of comfortable furniture he could find and then got territorial. 

If they mean it then this room could really be his. 

If they mean it. 

"I-I know you're nervous about staying, I was too! But- but I think you should." Rose takes a deep breath and takes his hand again. "You'd be safe." 

She catches the way he glances up at the curtain from beneath his increasingly shaggy hair, but she misinterprets it. Understandably. 

"I know it doesn't lock, but we wouldn't try to find out," she says hastily, her hand squeezing around his. "But it's okay if you don't wanna detransform here, too! Even if it _is_ safe." 

Adrien keeps the small, bitter noise that rises from deep in him locked tightly in his throat. He doesn't want to be _safe._ He _has_ wanted to detransform for three days. He wants Plagg. 

He hasn't been able to detransform except for when he's forced to after a battle, and after the last one he'd _tried_ to stay detransformed but he'd stumbled into one of his old hiding spots and started to hyperventilate so badly that Plagg had transformed him in alarm anyway. 

Adrien can't risk getting akumatised, no matter what. 

And nowhere ever _actually_ feels safe. 

(Father had told him he'd make sure that he stayed somewhere safe). 

"Chat?" Rose ducks her head again, looking up at him and chewing on her lip. "You don't have to decide right now. Or even anytime soon. But we talked to Anarka, and she says of course you can stay, and Juleka and Luka would be happy to have you, too." Rose's smile goes soft and fond. "You're Juleka's favourite hero, you know." 

A dry laugh escapes him. "Not Ladybug?" 

"She's Luka's favourite." Rose shrugs. "You're mine and Juleka's." 

Chat's voice rasps, feeling disconnected from the rest of him. "Maybe I should join you just to balance things out, then." 

Rose laughs, and Adrien starts to feel a little better. 

It still takes another week for him to try to sleep on the ship. 

It's been a rough week, but then they're all rough weeks. Hawkmoth never _lets up_ and Adrien is so tired. He'd crashed at the bakery for a few nights but he'd had to keep getting up and keep getting up and keep getting up in the middle of the night, chasing down akuma and returning and chasing and returning like a dog with a bad attention span trying to play fetch and his guilt at inevitably waking Marinette grows every time. 

He's spent the _last_ few nights huddled up with Ladybug in the lee of some building or another, wrapped tight around each other for warmth and hidden under one of the heavy blankets Ladybug's started to haul to a few of their favourite hiding places, but late autumn's turning into early winter and even those precautions can't stop the way they've started to shiver against each other's sides. 

And he's started getting spoiled at Marinette's. He misses a bed, or at least a chaise lounge. After the previous night he thinks he'd settle for a particularly warm stretch of carpet. 

... or deck. 

Chat avoids the crew, that first night. The porthole's not large enough to admit a grown man but one skinny teenage boy can slither through it without a problem, and when Adrien lands noiselessly in the room he stills right away. 

Rose must have been hopeful. 

The blanket on the bunk looks warm and soft and huge, deep red marked invitingly with his partner's spots, and something in his chest relaxes at her familiar red against his own familiar black. He takes one enamoured step towards the bunk and almost trips over a box that's been left on the floor. 

He might have mistaken it for absent-minded storage if it wasn't for his name scrawled on the side. 

But _For Chat Noir <3 _is in letters too big to miss, and he's too curious to ignore it. 

Adrien takes the box with him as he slinks to the bunk, sliding onto the bed so he can put his back against the wall and keep his eyes on the porthole. He wraps himself snugly in the blanket before huddling over to slit the box open with one claw. 

And quickly finds himself swallowing rapidly, holding back tears. 

The top layer is energy bars and drinks, enough to make up for not only tonight's akuma fight but for the two earlier in the day as well. Under that, though, is a homemade mask- identical to his own on one side but lined with that same soft ladybug fabric on the other, comfortable in a way nothing but his suit has ever been before- and a set of sleeping clothes with both his and his partner's colours. There's a note with them that says _From Marinette, with love_ that Tom and Sabine and Rose and Luka and Juleka and even Anarka have signed, and he hasn't even _met_ half of them yet. 

Chat clutches the sleep shirt to himself as he struggles to keep silent and keep looking through the box, but he also can't stop looking at the clothes. 

There's plenty of merchandise out there of him and Ladybug both. He's always enjoyed looking for it, even knowing that he has no way to buy any of it. Ladybug merchandise definitely outnumbers his own but he doesn't mind that. He can't blame them for it. 

But he's not sure he's seen anything that represents them both together like this before. The pyjamas _do,_ the red top has a yin yang with his paw print in one half and his partner's ladybug in the other and the black pants have tiny replicas of both symbols marching up each side.

Adrien hadn't brought anything with him when he'd run. 

He's only had the one outfit for so long, and even with his transforming and Ladybug's Cure his clothes have been tattered and close to ruined for a long time now. He's told himself it doesn't matter because no one's going to see them anyway, but he's not going to deny how nice it would be to have the option to change. 

There's more in the box, but he clutches these new clothes to himself with the first dawning edges of that sense of safety Rose had promised. 

There are macaroons and a mug cake mix from the bakery in the bottom of the box, and there's a reusable water bottle and a very carefully folded note that tells him there's a backpack under the bed for him too. 

The backpack's full of food and supplies, too. 

Chat curls in on himself, raising his hand to his mouth and biting down on his glove, stifling the purr that wants to rumble out of him. He thinks he's too overwhelmed already to handle looking at the backpack right now, but he has something else he can't put off any longer. That he maybe doesn't _have to_ put off any longer. 

"Claws in," Adrien whispers, and scrunches back against the wall as his kwami materialises. 

"'Bout time, kid," Plagg sighs, but for the first time in a long time he sounds relieved instead of upset. He drops down to the blanket himself and tugs at it lightly. "Marinette's not the only one trying to tempt you in outta the cold, huh?" 

Adrien flushes, averting his eyes and wincing when he sees his ripped and stained shirt. He lost his overshirt back nearly at the beginning, and one pant leg is more holes than cloth now, and Plagg doesn't ever comment but he's definitely looked pretty dismayed at the state of Adrien's clothes before. Adrien himself has had a surprisingly hard time caring, considering it once would have mattered to him quite a lot. "I've got something I can change into, now." 

"Again, 'bout time," Plagg says, without heat. 

Adrien changes quickly, muscle memory dictating that he's switched outfits in a matter of moments, and then he spends a while just lightly trailing his hands up and down the fabric of his new clothes. He recognises sturdy fabric when he sees it, and he knows comfortable clothes when he wears them, and this is both.

He wads up his old clothes a little viciously and shoves them into the bottom of the box, where everything he's removed has freed up space. 

Plagg swirls around the box and peers inside. "Got any food in this care package?" 

Adrien laughs softly and reaches for one of the macaroons. One of the energy bars tumbles into the newly vacated space, revealing something beneath it that Adrien's too preoccupied to look at too closely just yet but that catches Plagg's attention immediately. 

Plagg blinks, his eyes dilating as he sniffs. "Is... is that Camembert?" 

"Don't be ridiculous, Plagg, why would there be..." Adrien trails off, blinking himself. "...yeah. Yeah it is." 

There are four tightly packaged wheels of Camembert at the bottom of the box. 

"Huh," Plagg says, and there's an emotion in his voice that Adrien can't quite place. "Didn't, uh, expect that." 

"Yeah, me neither." Adrien realises slowly that he can sit back down now he's changed clothes. When he curls back up on the bed, shoulders shoved against the wall again, Plagg spirals down and lands in front of him. "I guess we should have?" 

"Yeah, maybe." Plagg's still studying the cheese with an unreadable expression. Almost too soft for Adrien to hear, the kwami mutters, "Didn't think she'd be thinking of _me,_ is all." 

Adrien almost says something, but he doesn't think that was addressed to him. Besides, as stunned as Plagg seems, Adrien's not once he thinks about it a bit. Ladybug had brought them to the Liberty. Ladybug has a kwami. Ladybug obviously knows about Plagg, and Adrien's probably mentioned his kwami's preferred recharge before, if only because they haven't had it in so long now. Plagg complains a lot but they just... can't get it very often, or very easily, and Plagg _can_ eat other things instead. He doesn't like to, and Adrien's honestly _pretty sure_ Plagg has outright stolen cheese while Adrien wasn't looking before, but he _can._

But Ladybug has a kwami. Ladybug has _Tikki._

And it's probably not the same for kwami, but... Plagg hasn't had a home anymore than Adrien has. Plagg says that months don't count for much for him, he says he doesn't care, he says- well. He says a lot of things about Father that Adrien doesn't want to think about. He says that he's not going to be the reason Adrien goes back. 

("Plagg, come on, it wasn't that bad. You know it wasn't that bad, you were there. You make it sound like some kind of prison," Adrien had tried, fairly early on. 

Plagg had eyed him. "Yeah, kid. Because it was. It literally had bars, Adrien, kid, I dunno how you're not seeing this." 

Adrien had tried harder to fit himself into the space they'd taken between a chimney and a roof for the night. "It's not like it was a _cell,_ Plagg! You've seen- you saw my room. I, I guess you don't have a good comparison, maybe, but you've gotta know how- how huge and elaborate that is- _was_ for a kid's room." 

"Yeah? You're what, like, twelve? Still seemed like an awfully small space to spend your _entire life in,_ kid. Especially if it's always _locked_.")

Plagg doesn't seem to notice or care that Adrien's gone quiet for too long. Plagg never does. 

Plagg takes one wheel of cheese and leaves the rest in a way that makes Adrien think with a jolt that maybe the months without guaranteed food had taken a toll on Plagg, too. Adrien's refused to let Plagg go hungry, and Plagg can't argue with him about this because they _need_ Plagg's powers, but they definitely haven't had access to the Camembert that his kwami would prefer. 

So for Plagg to _not_ immediately gorge himself on it... 

Adrien sees Ladybug well before patrol, because of course there's another akuma attack by lunchtime and another in the early evening, but it's not until patrol that he can talk to her about it. She listens just as intently as she always does, her brow furrowed clearly even with her mask, her head tilted as she gives him her attention, and Adrien falls that little bit more in love just like he does every time. 

"I can ask Tikki, but I think she's going to tell me the same thing you just did," Ladybug admits ruefully. "That doesn't sound like Plagg the way she's described him to me. She told me he almost got them both caught once because he snuck away to steal cheese." 

Adrien raises an eyebrow. "If Plagg's the one who snuck away, how did they _both_ almost get caught?" 

Ladybug's laughter is his favourite sound. "That was my question, too, and Tikki wouldn't answer me!" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a lot of comfort clothes other people gave me does it show (currently wearing: three different gifted comfort items. arguably a fourth, the fourth is technically an heirloom? from... someone. sources disagree).
> 
> that 'hes used to being a little hungry' thing- someone, at some point, told my mother that all women should be a little hungry all of the time and _she wholeheartedly believes this._ she seems weirdly horrified that twin brother and i do not (also, little brother says he does, but _like hell_ does he apply that to himself).
> 
> i dont know what happened to the timeline of this fic im gonna blame alix tho, lets start doing that, timeline mistakes are on alix now

**Author's Note:**

>  _got a shoe thrown at me by a mean old man_
> 
> if it seems like there are more frequent akuma than in canon thats cuz there are


End file.
